early 19th century time period become more and more involved in child rearing. The household work for these middle class women is task-oriented and unwaged. This makes them more and more dependent on their husband’s salary and more responsible for the children who were also out of the labor force.Working class families were different in some ways from middle class families. Often in a marriage, the man’s wages were not enough to support a family so the woman would have to work outside of the home as well. Many women in working class families worked in factories. Working class families also tended to have more children than middle class families because their labor was often needed to supplement that of their parents. These traits applied mostly to Protestant Caucasians of British descent, but some immigrants were also affected by these economic changes.The changes that shaped this domestic family were not only economic ones. Ideological transformations always accompany drastic economic changes. One such ideological change was the emergence of the Republican Mother. While women were discriminated against in politics as well as other forms of self-expression, they were still needed by the state. Because of the influence that women had in their families especially in the raising of the children the state had to convince women to be virtuous and to bring up good intelligent voters. This ideal was most likely applied only to middle class women as they were more virtuous and did not work outside of the home. Unlike the women of the colonial period, these women were responsible for their children and were blamed when the children were bad.The idea that the children were born as blank slates was also a product of the new ideology of the 19th century. Religious ideals changed in the early part of the century through Enlightenment. Children were, for the first time, being seen as innocent. In colonial time it was seen a...
